Openwashing

Definition

""Openwashing" is a term derived from " greenwashing" to refer to dubious vendor claims about openness. Openwashing brings the old "open vs. proprietary" debate back into play - not as "which one is better" but as "which one is which?" (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_spot_openwashing.php)

Discussion

What does it mean to be open?

And how can you tell if a product is really "open"?

Klint Finley:

"Take NASA's experience with Eucalyptus Systems as an example. NASA's Chris Kemp told The Register that the space agency had concerns that Eucalyptus's open source private cloud computing solution couldn't scale to meet the agency's needs. NASA engineers tried to contribute some new code to Eucalyptus to make it more scalable, but Eucalyptus rejected the contributions because they conflicted with code available in a closed source version it sold.

The source code that NASA was using was available, fulfilling at least one definition of the term "open source." But it wasn't open for contributions from outside and Eucalyptus served as a gatekeeper for the product. Eucalyptus didn't mislead customers - it was upfront about the existence of its proprietary offerings - but by some standards its product wasn't open. Eucalyptus has recently made moves towards being a more open company. What is "Open"?

Openness can perhaps be best thought of as a scale rather than a binary state. Simon Phipps of the Open Standard Initiative (OSI) has suggested the creation of an Open Source Scorecard. Until such a thing exists, what can you do evaluate the openness of a product or solution?

Michael Coté of the analyst firm Red Monk says that in some cases openwashing is mere ignorance - a company's decision makers don't realize what really goes into making something truly open. In others, it's a matter of opinion. There's a lot of fine print involved, and not everyone agrees on what "open" is.

Gil Yehuda, the director of open source at Yahoo, says that a lot of companies are willing to release code but are reluctant to take contributions. "That's not really what open source is all about, but it does accomplish something," he says. Yehuda cites transparency, trust, motivation to write better code, and recognition for contributors as some of the benefits of such an arrangement.

But Yehuda says accepting contributions has its own benefits, such as "crowdsourcing bug-fixes, evolving the project in novel directions, and building real partnership with the community."

...

Complete the following steps to determine in which ways a product or solution is open.

1. Check the License

2. Evaluate the Community and Governance

3. Beware "Open Core" Software

4. Read the Terms of Service for "Open" APIs"

(http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_spot_openwashing.php)